e objective relation which consists in
their being related as parts of nature? There is plainly
involved a transition from representation, in the sense of
the apprehension of something, to representation, in the
sense of something apprehended. It is objects apprehended
which are objectively related; it is our apprehensions of
objects which are associated, cf. pp. 233 and 281-2. Current
psychology seems to share Kant's mistake in its doctrine of
association of ideas, by treating the elements associated,
which are really apprehensions of objects, as if they were
objects apprehended.

[93] Cf. A. 112, Mah. 204; B. 162, M. 99.

The substance of Kant's vindication of the categories may therefore be
epitomized thus: 'We may take either of two starting-points. On the
one hand, we may start from the fact that our experience is no mere
dream, but an intelligent experience in which we are aware of a world
of individual objects. This fact is conceded even by those who, like
Hume, deny that we are aware of any necessity of relation between
these objects. We may then go on to ask how it comes about that,
beginning as we do with a manifold of sense given in succession, we
come to apprehend this world of individual objects. If we do so, we
find that there is presupposed a synthesis on our part of the manifold
upon principles constituted by the categories.

To deny, therefore, that the manifold is so connected is implicitly to
deny that we have an apprehension of objects at all. But the existence
of this apprehension is plainly a fact which even Hume did not
dispute. On the other hand, we may start with the equally obvious fact
that we must be capable of apprehending our own identity throughout
our apprehension of the manifold of sense, and look for the
presupposition of this fact. If we do this, we again find that there
is involved a combination of the manifold according to the
categories.'

In conclusion, attention may be drawn to two points. In the first
place, Kant completes his account by at once emphasizing and
explaining the paradoxical character of his conclusion. "Accordingly,
the order and conformity to law in the phenomena which we call
_nature_ we ourselves introduce, and we could never find it there,
if we, or the nature of our mind, had not originally placed it
there."[94] "However exaggerated or absurd then it may sound to say
that the understanding itself is the source o